NEWS IN BRIEF: A summary of developments across Los Angeles County | Community News File / Santa Clarita

County Planners Clear Controversial Development

After six years of haggling among planners, builders and environmentalists, a controversial hillside development of more than 1,700 homes won approval from the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission.

The commission's 4 to 1 approval Monday will move the proposed Westridge development to the county Board of Supervisors for final consideration in March.

Local environmentalists vowed Tuesday to continue to fight the project.

Officials of the Newhall Land and Farming Co., project developers, said they have worked for six years to exceed required environmental standards.

Chief among the issues will be a six-lane extension of the Old Road, which would dissect Westridge and pass through a county-designated significant ecological area, marked by valley oaks and savanna grasses.

Westridge is planned as a 798-acre project in an unincorporated area west of the Golden State Freeway between McBean Parkway and Valencia Boulevard. If approved, it would include single-family residences, apartments, townhomes and a golf course.

Originally proposed and approved by both the planning commission and the Board of Supervisors in 1992, Westridge had been stalled for most of the decade by a lawsuit filed by the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment.